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Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

forum.effectivealtruism.org

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Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#21

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #14

> Wikipedia has helped me so much, it's important to pay back : The WMF has done a reasonable job of stewardship, but I believe that insofar as there inheres a strong moral obligation to pay back, this obligation is to content creators. Donating to the WMF does not reward past content creators. That's an interesting point, and it got me thinking: what does reward past content creators? As someone who has contributed…

Some of the most heavily-contributing editors to Wikipedia are on the autistic spectrum. (I don’t think this is a very controversial statement for anyone involved in the community.) They are editing because organizing information and making articles as complete as possible assuages an inner itch – essentially the work is its own reward. Paying them for their activity would not change much, and I personally would question whether it is even necessary.

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#23

Post by TheNorthman »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8
wombatmobile wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the work culture like inside of wmf? Gender balanced? Cooperative? I'm curious because my experience of editing, and that of other people I heard from at an editor meet up, was that the culture is heavily male dominated, and unnecessarily adversarial in a bullying way. That said, the CEO at the time (2007 - 2014), Sue Gardner, seemed enlightened, progressive, smart and highly capable.

. Is the non profit to gate people from editing if arbitrary diversity requirements aren't met? The best part about Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it, anyone can run it, and nobody can lock up its content (for whatever reason). Look no further to Mozilla to see what happens when a non profit fails to meet it's mandate and is stuck with "peacocks" (folks who prioritize status or signaling > substance) instead of pr…

> Is the non profit to gate people from editing if arbitrary diversity requirements aren't met?

Notice how you're the one suggesting `diversity requirements' and then proceed by going on a tirade about it. There are many things to be done about diversity and not all of them requires coercion.

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#24

Post by bawolff »

sundarurfriend wrote: post #19
bawolff wrote: post #2

It should be noted that WMF had a significant management shake up since then. The lila era management is basically all gone. However im glad that this is the article posted, and not the rediculous "cancer" article that compares amount spent on servers when the site was smaller, slow and constantly going down to the modern day site when its fast, stable and a bigger site. [Disclaimer: used to work for wmf. Do not anym…

What were the problems with the "lila era management" in your opinion? The article made it sound like there were just some well intentioned decisions received poorly, that led to that person being sacked. But there's often a festering hoard of management issues beneath what's apparent to outsiders like us, and I'm wondering if that was the case here.

Ultimately there was a lack of confidence in Lila's leadership. The how & why doesn't matter if you can't effectively lead people. See also https://www.mollywhite.net/wikimedia-timeline/

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#25

Post by sundarurfriend »

One thing for HN readers to note is that the article is intended for people in the Effective Altruism community i.e. people who are going to donate anyway, and are just trying to decide where to direct their donation.

If you're in the majority of the population that doesn't regularly donate to a significant level, then please don't let this article simply turn your internal "should I donate to Wikipedia" switch off and leave everything else as is. Instead, start treating the Wikipedia donation banners as reminders to donate to some charity that you feel is worth giving to. (The EA forums would likely be a good place to research that, as well.)

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#26

Post by sprafa »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #21
sundarurfriend wrote: post #14

> Wikipedia has helped me so much, it's important to pay back : The WMF has done a reasonable job of stewardship, but I believe that insofar as there inheres a strong moral obligation to pay back, this obligation is to content creators. Donating to the WMF does not reward past content creators. That's an interesting point, and it got me thinking: what does reward past content creators? As someone who has contributed…

Some of the most heavily-contributing editors to Wikipedia are on the autistic spectrum. (I don’t think this is a very controversial statement for anyone involved in the community.) They are editing because organizing information and making articles as complete as possible assuages an inner itch – essentially the work is its own reward. Paying them for their activity would not change much, and I personally would ques…

I was going to complain but my experience with Wikipedia is this is pretty true.

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#27

Post by eindiran »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #21
sundarurfriend wrote: post #14

> Wikipedia has helped me so much, it's important to pay back : The WMF has done a reasonable job of stewardship, but I believe that insofar as there inheres a strong moral obligation to pay back, this obligation is to content creators. Donating to the WMF does not reward past content creators. That's an interesting point, and it got me thinking: what does reward past content creators? As someone who has contributed…

Some of the most heavily-contributing editors to Wikipedia are on the autistic spectrum. (I don’t think this is a very controversial statement for anyone involved in the community.) They are editing because organizing information and making articles as complete as possible assuages an inner itch – essentially the work is its own reward. Paying them for their activity would not change much, and I personally would ques…

What does some editors being on the spectrum have to do with anything? OP's point was that if you are going to financially reward anyone for providing you with well-written Wikipedia articles ideally it would be the people who created the articles, and donating money to the WMF doesn't reward these people at all.

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#28

Post by [deleted] »

xscott wrote: post #17

I've donated thousands of dollars to Wikimedia over the years. Before I retired, I took frequent advantage of my company's policy for matching donations, doubling the amount I gave. After retirement, I set my "Amazon Smile" donations to go there. Maybe I'm bragging, but I just want to show I actually care about the topic. I know children's cancer and other horrible things pull on more heart strings, but Wikipedia mak…

[deleted]

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#29

Post by zozbot234 »

bawolff wrote: post #20
zozbot234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than a bit ironic that people complain about the knowledge engine initiative, when Wikidata is now one of the more successful Wikimedia projects and pretty much the same thing.

Wikidata already existed during the knowledge engine fiasco, so if it was the same thing im not sure what they were doing. I suspect a lot of KE's failure related to inconsistent messaging and project scope. I'm pretty sure even now, nobody knows what KE was planned to be or what its value proposition would be, or "what" it actually is beyond buzzwords

The first phase of Wikidata (the MVP so to speak) was purely as a common repository for interwiki links, not a general knowledge engine/knowledge graph. The latter is a lot more recent.

Re: Should you donate to the Wikimedia Foundation? (2015)

#30

Post by throwaway5752 »

xscott wrote: post #17

I've donated thousands of dollars to Wikimedia over the years. Before I retired, I took frequent advantage of my company's policy for matching donations, doubling the amount I gave. After retirement, I set my "Amazon Smile" donations to go there. Maybe I'm bragging, but I just want to show I actually care about the topic. I know children's cancer and other horrible things pull on more heart strings, but Wikipedia mak…

I wonder if some people that undervalue wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation turned 18 after 2000 (under 40 or so).

I remember when my family got an encyclopedia set (you'd buy them for a thousand dollar or so, in pre-90s USD, if you were lucky enough to be able to afford them). You'd get yearly updates (physical books, also) for a fee for changes to entries. Didn't have the cross references, the non-text media, the cross referencing, the convenience of external links to online sources....

It's been a huge boon for global knowledge. They are one of the most valuable human endeavors of my lifetime.

edit: support childhood cancer, too. There has been real progress. Family support (lodging, traveling) sometimes get second billing to research or medical care. They're all good. So help us, need in one place doesn't negate the need in another. I like St. Jude, there are a bunch of others that do profound good for the world.

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